Text/Nian Jinser
Shunji Iwai's films are known for their fresh and unique images and delicate and rich feelings. In his films, we can often see cherry blossoms in early spring, snowy mountains in winter, and waves.
"Flowers and Alice" is a comedy film shot by Shunji Iwai, and the music in it is all arranged by him. The theme of the film continues the youth and beauty in "April Story". But the love described is more complicated than "April Story", "Flowers and Alice" mainly describes the friendship between flowers and Alice, facing tests in the love of youth and ignorance.
The story begins in 3 paragraphs, starting with Alice's friendship with The Flower, to The Flower deceiving Miyamoto into establishing a romantic relationship with her, Miyamoto's affection for Alice, Alice's break with the Flower as the climax of the story, and finally Miyamoto falling in love with Alice, Alice and The Flower reconciling, and the two restoring friendship.
Next, we understand the film from three aspects, from the 3 paragraphs of the story to the visual style of the film: picture, composition, use of light, and some revelations after watching it to interpret the charm of this film.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > 1 and 3 paragraphs: friendship, love, contradiction and reconciliation, cheerful, cool youth. </h1>
1. Flower's friendship with Alice
Flower and Alice are two girls with diametrically opposed personalities. Introverted and shy, Alice is warm and cheerful. But they have one thing in common, they are all children of single families.
After the two people became friends, they were often inseparable, going to and from school together, learning ballet together, and playing together.
On a subway trip, they met Miyamoto. At that time, Hana fell in love with Miyamoto, often secretly trailing, secretly filming, stalking, and crushing. By chance, Hana witnesses Miyamoto losing his memory due to an accident, and lies to Miyamoto, saying that it is his girlfriend and begins a "fake love" with Miyamoto.
During this time, Miyamoto was suspicious of flowers, and he felt that flowers were not his favorite type. In order to continue the lie, Hana drags Alice into it, falsely claiming that Alice is Miyamoto's ex-girlfriend.
Because of the friendship, Hana thought of letting Alice help her, and Alice began to deceive Miyamoto for the sake of Hana, and carried on Hana's lies. But I didn't expect that because of a boy, their friendship was undergoing subtle changes.
2. The love of Flowers and Miyamoto, Miyamoto and Alice
Hana's feelings for Miyamoto in the film are love at first sight, but Hana has not had the courage to confess. Until Miyamoto lost her memory, she took the opportunity to lie and associate with Miyamoto as she wished.
Alice and Hana meet Miyamoto on the subway together, but Alice likes Miyamoto's half-blood friend at the time. In the script of Alice and Miyamoto's so-called love memories, Alice takes Miyamoto to some places where her father often takes Alice, because the companionship slowly cultivates a good feeling for Miyamoto.
In the process of contacting Alice, Miyamoto discovers that the person he should like will be Alice, and he has a heartwarming feeling for her.
For Miyamoto, on the one hand, because of the same personality as The Flower, it is inevitable that there will be some dullness in getting along, and on the other hand, alice in a lively and vivid way, which makes him feel that the original monotonous life is somewhat different.
But this love, which began because of lies, will eventually have the truth coming one day.
3. The contradiction and reconciliation between the flower and Alice
Alice uses the game as a joke and asks Hana to leave Miyamoto, and the two fight over it. When Hana learns that Alice likes Miyamoto, the friendship between the two is on the verge of collapse.
Miyamoto is allergic to cold powder, but Alice says that he likes to eat cold powder the most, and she sees through the two girls' lies. Alice felt guilty about both Hana and Miyamoto, and chose to say goodbye to Miyamoto and let go of the relationship.
I don't know if Miyamoto understood whether Hana's deception of him was out of love, or whether he began to feel good about Hana when he recalled his past with Hana. When Hana wants to abandon Miyamoto to fulfill him and Alice, Miyamoto confesses to Hana.
When The Flower and Alice are in conflict, the classmate tells a story to the Flower. Saying that there used to be a flower house, they thought it was terrible when they passed by, because there was a girl in the flower house who hated school and never went out of the house. Later, she came to the ballet classroom, and this girl was The Flower, and it was Alice who invited the flower to learn ballet.
When Hua was alone on stage performing crosstalk, everyone else left, and only Alice was still offstage.
Alice has been unconditionally supporting Hana in this friendship of Flowers, she cherishes this friendship very much, and Flowers is finally willing to let go of selfishness about love and leave Miyamoto to Alice. But at this time, Miyamoto already liked flowers.
Alice was also completely free from the influence of the past, which her father had left in her heart. She completed the metamorphosis of growth and came out of the pain of the past. In the end, she realized her dream and appeared on the cover of the magazine, while Hana and she returned to becoming friends, and the two frolicked as before.
Although there is sadness and pain in youth, everything is to grow into a more complete person, and our lives have become different because we meet some people.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > second, visual style: picture, composition, use of light</h1>
Shunji Iwai's films are beautiful in style and often resonate with emotions. Unique techniques in terms of picture, composition, and use of light.
1. Picture
Shunji Iwai is in place in the grasp of the picture, and can harmoniously combine many elements together to form exquisite and delicate characteristics.
In the film "Flowers and Alice", the combination of cold and warm tones is used. One is a warm orange color indoors, and the other is a cool shade of green and blue that is outdoors.
For example, the beginning of the scene where The flower goes to the community is to use the subjective perspective of the flower to represent the sunset afterglow of this scene, portrayed from the window, the whole picture is shrouded in an orange color, giving people a warm feeling, which is taken from the perspective of the flower, showing the inner world of the flower, she came to the society with hope, with the purpose of approaching Miyamoto by joining the society.
But outdoors, especially when the flowers are with Miyamoto, Alice and Miyamoto, it is often dominated by green or blue tones, giving people a cold feeling and suggesting a green love between them.
In Shunji Iwai's films, the use of color is to render the plot, make the picture come alive, and beautify the aesthetic effect of the composition.
2. Composition
In Shunji Iwai's films, there are both compositions based on the principle of balance and symmetry, as well as compositions that break this principle, which brings people a kind of beauty enjoyment.
In Flowers and Alice, on the first day of flower and Alice's trip to middle school, they pass by a large cherry blossom tree, and if they freeze here, and then take the picture off, it is a beautiful landscape painting.
The lush cherry blossoms occupy four-fifths of the entire picture, and the flowers and Alice are in the lower center of the picture, occupying less than one-fifth of the entire picture, and this composition is unbalanced.
The proportion of trees and people is very different, and there is no symmetrical axis, and the composition of the picture attracts the attention of the audience with cherry blossoms as the visual center, and the audience is infected by the lush cherry blossoms and feels a vigorous spirit.
The black clothes worn by the flowers and Alice contrast with the plain cherry blossoms, achieving a harmonious unity in contrast. This spirit of "harmony", that is, putting together the corresponding things and the opposite things, achieves harmony and unity. In Shunji Iwai's film composition, this form of "harmony" is extremely strong.
3. Use up
In the use of light in the film, Shunji Iwai attaches great importance to the application of natural light. The definition of natural light has been said to refer to the light provided by natural conditions such as sunrise, sunset, cloudy days, thunder and lightning in nature, as well as rain, snow, and fog.
In the use of natural light, according to the position relationship between the light source camera and the subject of the film can be divided into several types such as front light, side light, backlight measurement, and backlight.
He is rigorous in his use of light with special significance, and likes to use backlight, which can also be found in Shunji Iwai's films.
In addition, the long shots in the film also properly express emotions. With shunji Iwai's editing, the whole film presents a good sense of beauty visually, and the emotional rendering is also very good.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > third, revelation:</h1>
Such a film with a little lyrical color, let us remember the youth at the same time, but also for growth and friendship, bring some enlightenment:
1. Be brave to love
We will always meet people we like in the middle of the sea of people. Although the flowers in the film are shy and dare not confess to Miyamoto, she will not back down when the opportunity comes.
When she lied to Miyamoto, Miyamoto's monotonous life has had a different experience ever since. He met Flower, a girl who was obsessed with him. He met Alice, a pretty and heartwarming girl.
If it weren't for Hana's bravery and persistence, Miyamoto wouldn't have gradually developed a crush on Hana, and they wouldn't have come together in the end, especially when Hana wanted to break up, Miyamoto said to her, "You don't want to decide everything alone." ”
It turns out that love is one step, one step, from dislike to I like you.
2. Cherish friendship
If someone pulls you along when you're feeling hopeless, you have to remember that person. If she sees you more than love, you must cherish her.
In the film, Alice takes her to ballet and lets her out of the house when she doesn't want to go to school and is locked up at home. After she also had a good feeling for Miyamoto, she let go of her emotions and said goodbye to Miyamoto. Because she knew that Hana loved Miyamoto more than she did, and it was harder to let go of the relationship.
When there are friends who always support you, accompany you, make you happy, and care about your feelings, you must treat your friendship well. Barkin once said: "Friendship in my past life is like a beacon, illuminating my soul and making my survival a little bit of brilliance." ”
Because friendship will be like a lamp, leading you to see a different light. It will also give your life a different meaning.
3. Let go of the past
Without relief, we can never look forward. Alice failed the first three times in the interview because she could not let go of the pain in her heart and danced lightly. It wasn't until later that she let go of her feelings for Miyamoto and figured out a lot of things, and she also lived out herself.
When Miyamoto had said that he would watch the red heart A that Alice had left him every day, and later said that he was going to tear it up in front of the flower, he had completely let go of his feelings for Alice and cared more about the flower!
Good things will always pass, and only when we let go of the past can we meet a better future.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" >4</h1>
Everyone has a past story about youth. The film "Flowers and Alice" puts the beauty of friendship and the youth of love, through natural transition and advancement, there is no ups and downs of the plot, only the emotions that are rendered to the extreme.
Take us back to relive the youth you have walked through or are experiencing.
References Deng Wenhe. "Dialysis of Aesthetic Characteristics in Shunji Iwai's Films". Film Literature. Issue 5, 2008